This week’s 5 most important social media changes

What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?

Twitter launched its new beta testing app, Facebook is updating its ad relevancy metrics and Instagram now lets you pause all notifications.

Let’s take a look at these changes in more detail.

Facebook suffered its longest outage in the platform’s history

For the best part of a day, apps in the Facebook family were either partially or completely out of action for different parts of the world. It took 11 hours for Facebook to resolve the issue which they have now confirmed was the result of a ‘server configuration change.’

Twitter launched its new beta testing app

Back in January, Twitter put a call out for users to register to be a part of their new testing program. Twttr, the new beta app, was released this week and the first round of users have had some time to play around. The first feature to be tested is a redesign of the reply thread which has been received well by most testers.

Instagram rolls out ‘Pause All’ notification option

If you’ve ever wanted to turn off your Instagram notifications without actually turning off the notifications today’s your lucky day. Instagram has rolled out a ‘Pause All’ option which gives users the ability to pause all notifications from the app for between 15 minutes and eight hours. The feature is currently only available on iOS.

Facebook is removing ad relevance scores

Facebook has announced that it is updating some of its ad metrics. One of these is the removal of the ad relevance score which will be replaced with three new relevance metrics: quality ranking, engagement rate ranking and conversion rate ranking. The ad relevance score will be removed from April 30.

Twitter introduced its new camera

At SXSW this week, Twitter revealed its newly updated camera which is designed to make it easier to “capture what’s happening in the world today.” Following in the footsteps of Facebook and Instagram, the new camera will be accessible from a swipe left and will allow users to instantly share photos, two-minute videos and live videos.

This week’s 5 most important social media changes

What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?

Twitter opens applications for its public beta program, Instagram is working on a donation sticker and LinkedIn is making recruiters lives a little bit easier.

Let’s take a look at these changes in more detail.

Twitter opens applications for its public beta program

Announced back in January, Twitter has opened applications for their public beta program that will allow users to test and give feedback on new features. The first cab off the testing rank is the visual design of replies. The program is currently only open to users who access Twitter from and iOS device.

Instagram is working on a Donation sticker

Fundraising stickers were announced by Facebook at their communities summit. The Instagram Donation sticker for Stories is the first iteration of this. The stickers are still being tested but they pose an interesting proposition for Instagram who by all accounts are wanting t expand the e-commerce functionalities in their app.

LinkedIn is moving its talent tools to one platform

Linkedin has three “core talent tools” Jobs, Recruiter and Pipeline Builder. LinkedIn has announced that these tools will now be moved onto a single platform that will provide a “new intelligent hiring experience” designed to make life easier for recruiters. As part of the shift, they’ll also be including some new functionalities which are due to start rolling out mid-year.

Facebook introduces new location privacy controls to the Android app

Facebook is making it easier for Android users to control what location data is sent and stored by the app. Android users have previously expressed concern over the app’s ability to continuously log location data while it’s not in use which was due to Android’s “all-or-nothing” system approach to location permissions.

Twitter is testing new “retweet with comment” layouts

While the new testing program will look into Twitter Replies, Twitter has confirmed that they’re currently running a public facing test which aims to make Twitter “more conversational” by giving retweets with comments a facelift. The layout in the new test makes comment retweets look like replies.

This week’s 5 most important social media changes

What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?

YouTube has been busy making a lot of changes this week, Facebook has introduced automatic translation for Dynamic Ads and Twitter has rolled out reverse chronological timelines for Andriod users.

Let’s take a look at these changes in more detail.

YouTube is testing a ‘Recommended Downloads’ feature

Downloading YouTube videos for later offline viewing is not a new feature. Users in all almost all countries have been able to do this for the last five years. YouTube is taking this feature a step further by testing download recommendations for users. It’s not yet known if the feature will be rolled out more widely.

Twitter rolls out chronological feeds for Android

The ability to switch between reverse chronological and algorithm based Twitter timelines was given to iOS users almost a month ago but Andriod users were left in the dark about when they’d be getting the update. Finally, Twitter rolled out the new ‘sparkle’ button to Android users yesterday and they are loving it.

Facebook adds new language option for Dynamic Ads

Facebook has been pushing cross-border initiatives for the last couple of years the aim of which is to help people and business’ communicate with anyone, anywhere. To further this ambition along, Facebook has introduced automatic translation for Dynamic Ads. This is an incredibly useful addition for any business who reaches an international audience.

YouTube is letting users swipe between videos

Swiping is the new tapping for YouTube in 2019. Unsurprisingly given the high video view rates that come from mobile, YouTube has introduced a few new features to make the platform more mobile friendly, one of which is the ability to swipe left and right between new videos. iOS users should start to see the feature in the coming weeks.

YouTube is removing some sharing capabilities

YouTube has announced this week that it will be removing the ability for users to automatically share their YouTube activities to Google+ and Twitter. The removal of Google+ comes as no surprise given it’s no longer available to everyday users but Twitter is more of a surprise. The feature will be removed after Jan 31st.

This week’s 5 most important social media changes

What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?

Facebook has had another data breach, Twitter rolls out the ‘Sparkle button’ and Snapchat is taking on TikTok.

Let’s take a look at these changes in more detail.

Facebook adds new features to Messenger

Facebook has added a range of new features to Messenger just in time to capture your holiday snaps. The new additions include two new camera option, boomerang and selfie mode and a few AR sticker options.

Snapchat introduces Lens Challenges

Snapchat is taking a page out of TikTok’s book and introducing challenge lenses. Challenge lenses allow users to “get their creative juices flowing” and participate in musical medleys or just film themselves dancing to the selected challenge song. It’s worked well for TikTok but will it save Snapchat’s declining user base?

Facebook had yet another data breach

We’d hoped that we wouldn’t still be writing about these by now but Facebook has disclosed that there was another bug on their platform that exposed users photos to third-party apps. They say the problem has now been fixed but its left another strike against the Facebook name.

Twitter rolls out the ability to switch timelines to all users

Initial tests were announced back in September that would give users the ability to switch their timelines between algorithm and reverse chronological timelines. Twitter is now bringing the ‘Sparkle button’ as it has so been named to all users.

Facebook launched an inspiration section for business’

Facebook is trying to make its business manager a source of inspiration for business creative. The new section shows examples of the most creative ads and the best performing creative from across Facebook’s platform.

This week’s 5 most important social media changes

What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?

Snapchat lenses have come to desktop to make your business meetings all the more interesting, Twitter is making it easier to change up your news feed and Vimeo videos can now be shared directly to LinkedIn.

Let’s take a look at these changes in more detail.

Facebook is testing a new layout for Facebook Stories

It’s no secret that Facebook Stories have not been as successful as Facebook would’ve liked. So now they’re trying a new, rather in your face, tactic – a new layout that places six Stories right at the top of the news feed. When you first open the app, the new layout takes up almost the entire screen so there’s no missing it.

Twitter is testing a new home screen button

Previously, the option to switch between a reverse chronological feed and an algorithmic feed was buried deep within Twitter’s settings. Twitter announced today that they’ll be testing a new button on the home screen of a select number of iOS users that will allow them instantly switch between the two newsfeed options.

Snapchat brings lenses to desktop

A new desktop extension has been released by Snapchat this week that will allow users to access lenses from their desktop computers. Lenses can now be integrated with Skype, YouTube, Facebook live, even Zoom. This new addition may temporarily increase app usage but it is unlikely to help stop Snap’s user drop off in the long term.

Page and Business recommendations have been added to Facebook Groups

A ‘Recommendations’ panel has been added to Facebook groups. This new addition will collate all the Business’ and Pages that group members have recommended into one place. It creates a new avenue for business discovery with potentially a more engaged audience as users are more likely to trust and act on the opinions of those they’re interacting with.

Vimeo subscribers can now publish directly to LinkedIn

Vimeo announced a new feature that will allow videos to be published directly to LinkedIn. This may seem like a small change but it’s an indication that Vimeo has given up on being just an online video watching platform, rather a leading platform for publishers who need to embed content.

This week’s 5 most important social media changes

What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?

This week, Facebook is making a whole range of changes to ads and Ads Manager, Messenger received an update and Twitter is testing a range of new features to help encourage engagement on the platform.

Let’s take a look at these changes in more detail.

Facebook introduces new restrictions on ‘low-quality’ ads

Facebook has announced a new set of restrictions for brands that publish ‘low-quality’ ads. Low-quality ads are classed as those that include clickbait or direct people to ‘unexpected content’. Publishers who use these kinds of ads will have new penalties imposed on them.

Messenger receives a makeover

Research conducted on behalf of Facebook found that simplicity was the most important attribute for messaging app users. Facebook has taken these findings on board for version four of Messenger. The old messenger had 9 tabs, making it difficult to navigate but Messenger 4 has just three: chat, people and discover

Twitter’s testing new features to increase engagement

A few weeks ago, Twitter asked for feedback on their potential new reply formats that aimed to increase engagement on the platform. Now, they’re testing a few more features that will hopefully achieve the same result.

Facebook tests video polls within ads

Live video polls were rolled out on a wider scale this month and are now testing the feature in video ads. For now, it’s only available to a select group of advertisers and there’s no news on when it might be rolled out more widely.

According to Facebook, only 10-12% of users stay active for more than seven days after downloading an app. To help app marketers better reach users that are more likely to be engaged with their app, Facebook is introducing a new retention optimisation option to Ads Manager.